Switching between companies

What you'll learn#

• Who needs to switch companies, and who doesn't
• Where the company switcher lives and how to use it
• What changes when you switch
• How VAT Portal remembers which company you're working in

Most people don't need this#

In VAT Portal, your work is always scoped to one active company at a time. If you only belong to one company — which is the case for most people — you never need to switch. You'll just see your company's name in the header and that's it.

This article is for the minority of users who:

• Belong to more than one company (for example, a contractor or consultant who works with several clients).
• Are administrators who need to see or manage multiple companies from a single account.

Where the switcher is#

Look at the top-left corner of the header. Depending on your account, one of three things appears there:

1. A single company name (plain text, not a dropdown)

• You belong to only one company. There's nothing to switch.

2. A dropdown of your companies

• You belong to more than one company. The dropdown lists the companies your admin has assigned you to.

3. A dropdown of all companies in the system

• You're an admin or super-admin. You see every company — not just your own — so you can administer any of them.

Each entry in the dropdown shows the company name alongside a small status badge (usually "Active" in green; a muted badge means the company is disabled).

Switching to a different company#

1. Click the company name or the building icon in the top-left of the header.
2. The dropdown opens.
3. Click the company you want to switch to.
4. VAT Portal briefly reloads its data and you're now working in that company.

That's it — no confirmation dialog, no page refresh on your part.

What changes when you switch#

Switching isn't just cosmetic — it's a real context change. Most of VAT Portal is scoped to the active company, so a few things will be different:

• Your data — documents, tasks, users, workflows, departments, and so on are all per-company. When you switch, you're looking at a completely different set of records.
• Your permissions can be different — you might be an AppAdmin in one company and only an Operator in another, because your access level is set per-company. Buttons you saw before (Create, Delete) may disappear or reappear.
• The sidebar may look different — if your admin granted you different modules in each company, the sidebar updates to reflect what you can access in the current company.
• Any page you had open may no longer exist — if you were looking at a specific document from Company A and switch to Company B, that document isn't in Company B. You'll usually get returned to a list view or see an error. Go back to the Dashboard and start fresh in the new company.

Your choice is remembered#

Unlike language and theme (which are browser-specific), the active company is remembered on the server, tied to your account. This means:

• If you log out and log back in — even from a different browser or device — you'll still be in the same company you last switched to.
• Your active company is personal to your account — your colleagues aren't affected by your switching.

Common questions#